Measuring sports participation in the Netherlands – the need to go beyond guidelines

Abstract

Introduction: Sport is a social category. What people label as sport, varies historically and across cultures. That makes it difficult to compare outcomes of sports participation research. In this article, we will draw out how and to what extent methodological differences have influenced outcomes of Dutch sports participation surveys. In addition, we will go into attempts to enhance comparability between surveys by issuing a Guideline for Sports participation Research (GSR).Methods: secondary analyses were performed on different sports participation surveys in the Netherlands. In addition, we report on two specific case studies to describe why outcomes of sports participation research differ between surveys, even if they appear to use similar questions. Also we go into the experiences with the GSR.Results: the Netherlands are characterized by a high sports participation rate. Incomparability of sport research appear to stem from three different aspects: (1) sampling and fieldwork, (2) question formulation and (3) analysis procedures. It was found that sports participa-tion was positively correlated with response, meaning that social surveys generally overestimate sports participation rates. Experiences with the GSR learn that in order to enhance our understanding of sports participation, it is simply not enough to issue guidelines on how to conduct the research. There is a clear need for more coordinated research.